I am afraid of :

1. Sitting in the dark. Bad things happen in the dark, this is simply known to the entire mankind population. I feel like I'm suffocating and that if something hits me or pull me away from where I stand, I won't be able to see who or what and sitting in the dark just give me shivers. This is when my body mutates and I have bionic eyes.

2. Swimming in the ocean/lake/river. Simply because you can't guess the depth of the water and I hate strong currents. And I hate the feeling I have in my chest when I suddenly can't feel the bottom anymore.

3. Trying too hard and still failing or not achieving the expected end results. That's when I feel even lower than six feet under.

4. Trusting someone too much and being too happy and feeling like things have been going my way. Something must be wrong. It will be.

5. Dying and not to be able to tell the people I truly care and love what I want to, or losing the people I love. It's the same as me dying. Only that I don't admit it out loud. Who I love, the regrets and the things I want to do for and with them.

Dear Mommy.

It's that time of the year again, Mother's Day. I'm sorry I can't buy you expensive things *you know how I am with money*, I can't take you out for dinner or lunch because we're continents apart, I can't sing you a song because I suck at singing, I can't write you a poem because I am not good with words but this is what I can give you. A cyber letter.

I know how hard these past 20 years has been for you. Raising a kid alone is tough, let alone 4 kids. And I know you think that I never listen when you tell me how hard it was for you when you first had me, with Ayah living all the way in Penang and that you had to take the mini bus even when you were pregnant with me.

And I know that I haven't been the easiest to raise. I am rebellious and I like to do things my own way. Even when you say no, I go for it anyways, even after you reasoning out all the reasons why I should not. And when you just won't let me, I would literally beg and annoy my way through until you say yes.

I also didn't help much with the house chores. But you know how I hate doing the laundry. :| And I have always took for granted how you used to drive me everyday to and from school, until I had my own license and realised that driving isn't as easy as it looks. The same goes for cooking. Now that I live on my own, I hate cooking and the cleaning up and all the hassle.

So here's my way of saying thank you for all that you have done for the past 20 years and that I love you so much and that you are the best mom one can wish for. <3

This is what I've learnt from my almost 2 years of living here in Egypt. Or Mansoura, to be a tad more specific.

1. Do not throw away empty used water bottles, especially the 1.5 litre ones. Instead, refill it with pipe water and put it somewhere, outside the toilet would be a good spot. Because, if you're living in a building where they don't have a motor-generated water pump and your apartments higher than the 4th floor, you don't want to be sitting inside the shower for 15 minutes while getting your housemate to go knock on the landlord's door and tell him to please pump the water. Or even if you have a motor-generated water pump, black outs and insufficient electric current is even worse, because there's nothing anyone can do but pray to God that the power comes back on soon.

2. Do not wear perfumes with very strong fruity note and sit under or anywhere near a tree. I once had on DKNY's Be Delicious and had to run inside a building to save myself from being stung by a bee.

3. Yes heels are sexy and they make you feel confident, but tripping and falling in the middle of the road is not especially when there are people around, which is the case most of the time because the streets here are rarely empty. You don't want to be walking and feeling so sexy and have that look on your face where you know you look good and fall the next minute and rip your pants. Not sexy at all, I tell you. You can save it for dinners, parties and City Stars, though.

4. Always have change in your pocket for beggars. Never, I repeat, never, take out a purse in front of them and fiddle with your money especially when you have a LE 200 and a LE 1 note and when you want to pull out the LE 1 note, you pulled out the LE 200 note too, because they will literally wrestle you for it. Unless you have a friend who is strong enough to push them away and pull you away, you wouldn't want to be in that situation.

5. A ring and an iPod or MP3 player is more of an investment than you can ever imagine. Wear a ring on your finger and plug in your earphones and walk down the street. Saves you from all the boyya boyya and what not. Seriously.

This is what I discovered while lying half-asleep on my bed, cursing because it was 5 o'clock in the evening on a summer day and my fan's not working, listening to music with a tweezer in one hand and a small compact mirror in another.

Life is like plucking your eyebrows.

Some just don't care about it. And some put a lot of effort in it.

You can't always expect others to help you with it, asking for a hand once in a while is okay, but in the end you are the one who is responsible for it.

You can ask others for opinion on how you can shape it and others can tell you how they think you should do it, but in the end your decision is what matters.

Sometimes you get the perfect arch, but sometimes you don't get it right and you'll have to wait for time to pass by and try your hardest to not repeat the same mistake.

People will not always like how your eyebrow look, but you can't please everyone. You have to go with the one that suits you perfectly well .

At times, you accidentally pluck your eyelid instead and it gets very painful that sometimes it bleeds but you just have to put up with it and you'll learn by time that the pain goes away.

Sometimes you look at other's eyebrow and you see how perfectly shaped it is and you wish you had theirs instead.

I know how stupid this might sound to some, if not to all, but hey, I'm just saying whatever crosses my mind.

On another note, condolences to the wife and family of Bro Hisham, a blogger who was dear to my friend, who passed away this evening in a car accident. May the mercy of Allah be with him. May the mercy of Allah be with us all. From Him we come, and to Him we all return.

It's 7.24 in the morning, I am high from the after-effects of medicine and I need to pee. So very depsperately. But Baba's pissed at us because we got into a fight with him few weeks back and he feels like we are blaming him for our ridiculously expensive water and electric heater and we demanded that he let us move out earlier than supposed to but he disagreed. The other day he was telling us about how he was installing a new water pipe and we supposedly won't be having anymore water problems from then on. But I left the tap pn since 3 in the morning and still no water. Aaaaaaah. And hence, my plans of going to the library to spend the whole day stuffing my face in books while some of my friends will be going to Cairo for the day just went down the drain.

And we were hanging out yesterday after the sheet exam and got talking and one of it was about ''Bait Muslim''. It's an organisation *I think* that matches couples based on profiles. Sort of like online dating, but in a more Islamic way. I don't know if they have it in other places, but they sure have it in Mansoura.

So this is how it works, pardon me if I'm wrong, though. You get registered with the representatives and they'll have some sort of interview session and ask questions like, ''Why do you want to get married'', ''Why choose Bait Muslim'' and ''What do you look for in your partner?'' Mind you, I haven't tried this before and I don't know anyone who has gone through this, so this is all a wild guess. Sorry if I get the facts wrong. And then you fill up a questionnaire about yourself and give a photo. So the opposite sex would run through profiles of possible 'dates' and if they like a particular someone, a 'meeting' would be planned where both sides meet and talk, supervised but others. Meaning it won't be just the two of you in a room. And if you like the other person, you can get married, I think. Sounds interesting, no?

But the catch is that they say people usually do this when they really wanna get married, not to just find friends and things like that. So I was really interested to try it, I mean you never know what's gonna happen, right? But don't get me wrong, it's not that I want to get married pronto or anything, it's just one of the few things I really would wanna try. It does sound interesting. But what if nobody would like to get to know me considering that I am a 19 year old girl who doesn't know how to cook, has trouble making up her mind all the time that I have to change at least thrice everytime before I go out, doesn't like to stay at home and likes wearing heels but trips and falls all the time. Sounds like a good catch, no ? :|

My biological clock is broken, if that's the word you can use.

The other week before exams I would sleep at 6, konon macam agar tak lepas semayang subuh. Bangun around 3.30. Just in time for Zohor dan semayang Asar di awal waktu.

During exam week it was pening-kepala-sbb-tahan-mengantuk because I usually sleep after finishing exams, around noon, and waking up at around the same time. So you can say I was sleep deprived. Can I get very loud and long pfffffts? Hell yeah.

And then now, I sleep at 3 pm all the way till 10 at night. Well at least I get to see the sun rise and inhale freah air while drinking orange juice? Gaaaah.

They changed the exam schedule. Again. I think it has been only 5 or 6 times since they changed it? The best part, 2 days gap in between papers and exam starts mid June and ends mid July and we are supposed to move out end of June and we don't have a house and I still can't imagine moving in the midst of exams. Thank you to whoever is responsible for the new schedule.


Oh and one last thing, I don't like people who put the blame on others when it is very obvious you are the one who should be blamed. Don't bother trying to explain, hoping that someone will get you off the hook, we're not stupid, you know. Trust is hard to gain, but very easy to lose.